Andy Butler, founder member of NTF returned to The Gambia in April 2009. Andy travelled by himself on this occasion. Each year the original family holiday turns more into a business trip. I am sure those who do similar work in the Gambia can understand this!

This year the 'gift' to Penyem School was musical instruments. I took 30 recorders, a clarinet, some boomwhackers (plastic tubes which when hit play notes), 6 sets of percussion instruments and I bought some local drums which were donated by Millway Primary School. In the photo Veronic Gomez receives the musical instruments on behalf of the school. Veronic is sponsored by Millway.

A further gift was 20kg of pens, pencils etc. donated at the very last minute from the generous children of Moulton Primary School. This photo shows Mai Colley receiving the stationary. Mai has lifetime sponsorship from Moulton School.

Other gifts were given to the school that had been donated by Uk residents.

During the visit to the village I was treated to breakfast and lunch of rice and chicken cooked by the ladies. There was a football match played between Penyem and a neighbouring village.

I was able to inspect the various projects that NTF is involved in. The Village Development Committee told me of a bee keeping project and the ongoing need to repair the water tanks. Chief Kolley showed me how some of NTF's money had been spent in repairing school furniture. Last year's initiative from Imerja had allowed every household to take delivery of at least one mosquito net -BRILLIANT!

The Izusu Trooper was being put to good use as the village ambulance and I was able to see documented evidence of it's trips to health centres and hospitals.

Of course, one of the main reasons for the visit was to see the sponsored school children. This project is going.particularly well. In the photo below you can see all of the sponsored children.

One of the next major projects is to provide a full time medical attendant at the village health centre, so we would be pleased to hear from anyone who would like to help in funding this position.

The photo below was taken by the villagers to show the distribution of the mosquito nets donated by Imerja.